Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett used his SOTIC keynote in Guyana to call for a Caribbean Tourism Resilience Fund, a financing vehicle he said the region's destinations need to underwrite hurricane preparedness and keep tourism supply open after major storms.

The proposal, delivered at the State of the Tourism Industry Conference, positions tourism ministers across the region to revisit how the Caribbean underwrites risk. Bartlett framed the fund as a financing vehicle rather than a relief disbursement, arguing that waiting for post-storm reconstruction leaves sellers of travel — hotels, tour wholesalers, cruise lines, attractions — exposed to multi-month closures that ripple through distribution channels and booking curves.

"His proposal could reshape how tourism destinations finance hurricane preparedness, protect workers and small businesses, and attract international investment," according to reporting on the address. Bartlett stopped short of publishing a funding formula, governance structure or launch date.

Who pays into the fund?

Bartlett did not name the contributors. The unanswered question — whether the capital would come from member-state budgets, a tourism levy on arrivals, donor agencies, multilateral lenders, insurance pools, or a blend — determines whether the mechanism actually reduces the cost of doing business for hotel chains and tour operators.

A levy-based model would lift the all-in cost of Caribbean packages at a moment when the region competes on price with Mediterranean and Southeast Asian destinations. A donor-funded model avoids that friction but tends to fragment across project cycles. An insurance-linked structure could lower premium load on resort operators in hurricane zones, a line item that already runs above comparable non-Caribbean properties.

Who controls the fund?

Governance is the harder political question. Caribbean tourism is split between the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and national ministries that guard their own marketing budgets. A pooled resilience fund would require surrendering some spending authority to a shared vehicle, a step several smaller economies have resisted on past joint procurement.

Bartlett has been the most vocal Caribbean advocate for joint financing tools in recent years. His Tourism Resilience Corridors concept, advanced through the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre in Kingston, has pushed member states toward shared protocols rather than shared treasuries. A funded mechanism would mark a step beyond advisory work.

What changes for sellers of travel?

For hoteliers, tour operators and cruise lines, the trade consequence is whether Caribbean inventory becomes insurable on better terms. Reinsurers price Caribbean hurricane exposure above most other warm-water destinations, and that pricing flows into group rates, wedding bookings and corporate retreat pricing. Any instrument that lowers expected loss per storm shifts the rate sheet.

Distribution channels feel the impact indirectly. When a major hurricane knocks out a destination for a season, OTAs and tour operators reroute demand to competing regions and do not always route it back. A resilience fund that demonstrably shortens recovery time would aim to keep Caribbean product in the booking window through the following shoulder season.

When could the fund become reality?

Bartlett offered no timeline. For now the proposal sits where most regional tourism financing ideas sit — agreed in principle, contested on contribution shares, and pending a host institution willing to underwrite the working group.